Japanese GP: Williams Qualifying Review
By Williams F1 Team
October 8 2012
The Williams F1 team looks back at their qualifying for the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix.
| Williams Japanese GP Qualifying Review: |
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Qualifying Notes • Pastor Maldonado finished 14th with Bruno Senna 18th in qualifying for tomorrow’s Japanese Grand Prix. • Pastor struggled for pace in Q2, posting a quickest time of 1:32.512. • Bruno narrowly missed out on Q2 by 0.35 seconds after being held up by Jean-Eric Vergne's Toro Rosso at the chicane on his final Q1 lap on soft tyres. |
Pastor Maldonado:  "We’ve
been working hard to make the car more competitive but for one reason or
another, we just couldn’t pull it all together today. We need to try to
understand why, but tomorrow is going to be a long race so I’m quite
optimistic. The gaps are so close and our longer run pace looks
encouraging, so we aim to push for some points tomorrow."
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Bruno Senna "It
was a frustrating qualifying session as I was held up on my final timed
lap at the end of Q1 and couldn’t post the time that I wanted. However,
it’s a long race tomorrow and although this track is difficult to
overtake at, we’ve been in this position before and so we’ll give it our
best shot to score some points in the race."
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Mark Gillan Chief Operations
Engineer: "We
had a tough day today with Pastor struggling with car balance which
ultimately limited his potential pace and he qualified 14th. Bruno was
looking very comfortable to proceed into Q2 alongside Pastor, having
been 0.6 seconds up on his previous run, when Vergne blocked his lap
slowing him by 1.6 seconds and leaving Bruno extremely frustrated in
18th. There are a few penalties to apply to drivers further up the grid
which should promote both our drivers and we are confident with our race
pace going into tomorrow."
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Suzuka Circuit, Japan. |
Weather: Warm and dry | ||||
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POS |
DRIVER |
TEAM |
Q1 |
Q2 |
Q3 |
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1 |
S Vettel |
Red Bull | 1:32.608 | 1:31.501 | 1:30.839 |
|
2 |
M Webber |
Red Bull | 1:32.951 | 1:31.950 | 1:31.090 |
| 3 | J Button | McLaren | 1:33.077 | 1:31.772 | 1:31.290 |
| 14 |
P Maldonado FW34 04 RS27-5404/2 |
Williams F1 Team | 1:32.834 (8th) | 1:32.512 | - |
| 18 |
B Senna |
Williams F1 Team | 1:33.405 | - | - |
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